to sit by the fire and play like a dream,

his calloused fingers pale darting

flames across the stops. But every tavern

has its own dog-killer and herd-god,

its bribe-swallower, its giver of luck –

and having got his pedigree,

having grasped the last injustice,

the mark was taken out the back and stiffed.

*

He dared a god and lost,

and got flayed alive for such presumption –

the river so-called arose from his blood

and the tears of his brothers and sons.

With no knife and only starlight

the youngest climbs, unties the knots

and sets the corpse free. The awful stench.

We wrap him in the swaddling cloths

and lug him uphill to an olive grove

that someone knows and in a little clearing

stack rocks around the body, then walk back

to a houseful of the vengeful and drunk.

Cabochon

She still has some cousins in Leitrim,

the tall nurse broadcasting our secret,

and bright eyes bright as trinkets

when her pink nail taps the screen.

Between the coda and the dipped head

a flicker in the quadrant’s grain

steadies to a light bobbing

rhythmically, unhindered . . .

We stand before the elevator’s

mirror now like any other passengers

disembarking at the gate, late,

a silent weight of uncut gems

stitched meticulously in the hems

of your winter coat, my leather case.

Envy

Nothing but admiration for that polar bear lying there flat out

as if he’s punctured, and sea lions we also love who, like us,

suffer from that tic of always applauding their own tricks,

but I did detect again the same strained sadness in the eyes

of the apes and the larger monkeys, as if they felt they really

should become men, but could not discover the secret as to how

it happens – and who would not admit the background anguish,

sensing something better there almost within grasp but obvious,

the lack of wit and discipline and wherewithal preventing it

and in large despair I launch plots against my neighbour Gwen

who’s also lost and carries round the same hot pennies of un-

happiness. Gorilla, sir, I want to tell you we have surely

reached a stage in the evolving which is not the final stage,

and will pass through it quickly with dignity and grace,

acquiring something like the freedom of the universe.

Pershing

His high-ness. The foot-long hands. A suit that did not,

stiltwalker trousers and clown shoes, and localized in

the pliancy of the smile; embarrassment, kindness, the loss.

I tore out and Sellotaped the page to my wall, like an icon.

Now wire hair is growing from my ear canals and neck.

I tend to smell lightly of pine. The street’s a hall of mirrors,

each reflection mine and brother wolfman, sister midget,

as I understand it we are metaphors of one another

and if I see the image of him loping down Tenth Avenue

or queuing in his anorak for coffee and a muffin –

his ducking, gentle, spectacled head an inch or two